Centering in silence

This past week, twenty guests and three leaders have been praying together at the monastery in a Centering Prayer Intensive Retreat. An "Intensive" provides an opportunity for established practitioners of Centering Prayer to deepen their practice in an atmosphere of silence and community support.

Every day, Participants pray for six 30-minute Centering Prayer periods. All in all, we prayed together for over 18 hours (but who's counting...). The Centering Prayer was also supported with viewing and faith sharing on videos from Fr. Thomas Keating’s Human Condition teachings.

In the afternoon, the retreat leaders were available for brief sessions of  individual "soul-friending." To support the Intensive, the Guest House was open 8 days in a row and in round-the-clock Greater Silence. Many other guests came to benefit from this atmosphere throughout the week.

Guest House scenes. From top, clockwise: meditating with the great oak and the river in view on the Little Cloister; reading on the Great Cloister; doing watercolors in Pilgrim Hall.

Last Monday, Br. Aidan got to visit Dr. Mary Barber's workplace. Mary is an Associate and Seminarian from Newburg. She works at the Rockland Psychatric Center in Orangeburg, NY. She wanted Aidan to see how a visit to the monastery had inspired the residents of the Recovery Center to paint bricks to lay down their own labyrinth. Mary is already planning the Recovery Center's residents next visit to the Monastery.

Visiting the labyrinth at the Recovery Center. From left, clockwise: Dr. Mary Barber, our Associate, Br. Aidan and Mahima a staff member at the center; the same three; Mary and Aidan at the center of the labyrinth.

The weather has been beautiful; sunny and temperate. The gardens are in full bloom. Irises are putting in a great show. And last week's plantings by the garden volunteers are establishing themselves nicely.

The garden and the Librarian. From top left, clockwise: a beautiful cobalt blue planter in front of a (now) decorative door of the Middle House; alliums and irises against the copper beech background; plantings in the Little Cloister; irises, alliums and columbines (can you tell purple is Br. Aidan's favorite color?); Br. John, our Librarian, in front of recently catalogued books and ready to go pick up trash along Route 9W.

This week, the church featured irises and pussy willow from the gardens.

Irises and pussy willow all around.

Afte our intensive week of centering, the Centering Prayer retreatants came out of silence on their last night here and had a "Bernie party," so named for a Cistercian Brother of Thomas Keating who was a loving man. And he loved to enjoy ice cream with all the toppings with his brothers. Keating gives a moving testimonial to Bernie as a manifestation of the Love of God in one of the Human Condition videos which we watched during the week.

The "Bernie Party" with the Centering Prayer practitioners.

We have lots of Centering Prayer retreats scheduled for 2020. The next one this year is in December. Keep checking our offerings on our website.